alansebayemail@nospam.com (Tuolumne DC) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:06:57 -0400

From Franklin D. Roosevelt-1936 Democratic National Convention

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests. The true conservative seeks to protect the system of private property and free enterprise by correcting such injustices and inequalities as arise from it. These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike. (Was FDR a tea bagger?)

Barry Is Probably Projectile Vomiting Seeing What Has Happened to His Party

Truth Behind The SPI Lumber Smokescreen

"The evening was emceed by Mike Albrecht, who brought a groan from the crowd when he stated,
"..the USA is now the largest importer of lumber in the world". Albrecht's point being, that the USA
should be wisely harvesting and utilizing its' own natural resources." MML

"If I'm reading the numbers correctly, the data provided from Debra Warren of the USFS sent to us shows a 274% increase in log exports from SF ports in 2010 (22,675) compared to 2009 (8286). If you compare the 2010 numbers to 2008 (2849), the increase is close to 800%.
The 2010 log exports from the LA customs district totaled 49,130, so the total from both LA and SF was 71,805." (From friends who actually document this information)

From the Portland paper: "22 cargo ships loaded with logs left (Olympia) last year (2011). 1200 truck loads of raw logs on each ship. The one ship they discussed had an American captain and a crew of 16-15 Japanese and 1 Filipino."

(I could not agree more with Mr. Albrecht. America must stop the devastating practice of clear cutting and the use of herbicides. But most importantly, the industry should stop exporting our raw logs and our mill jobs. I think if the crowd knew what was really going on, they would have booed Mr. Albrecht's ill conceived smokescreen.)

How About a Few Words From Some Environmental Wizards of Yore

"We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. I wish I had more years left!"
Thomas Edison, in conversation with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone (1931); as quoted in Uncommon Friends : Life with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel & Charles Lindbergh (1987) by James Newton, p. 31

The Redistribution of Wealth Continues
"While millions of 99% Americans to be jobless and the nation’s unemployment rate hovers around 8.3 percent, chief executive officers of the nation’s largest companies received a 2 percent pay raise last year. While that may not seem like much of an increase, it came on top of a 27 percent hike in 2010, according to a report in USA Today.
The median, or mid-point, pay of top executives was $9.6 million in 2011, USA Today reported, based on 138 companies in the Standard & Poor’s index of 500 largest companies whose pay data has been disclosed. As more CEO pay data becomes public, the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch website, paywatch.org, will be updated with more complete data in mid-April.
While CEO pay rose, USA Today noted, average weekly earnings of workers, adjusted for inflation, fell 1.2 percent from the October 2010 peak through February 2012, the latest data available." http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Corporate-Greed/CEO-Pay-Rose-in-2011.-Again

Required Reading-Especially For Those Doubters

Read it all, do not leave it in the middle, this is one of the finest pieces

written on why we must not only be Democrats, but why we must be

strong in our beliefs, and our unity. But most importantly we must vote,

and we must get others to vote. The extremists on the right want nothing

more than to rope a dope us into believing we are losers.

But I will let Beverly guide you back to what is both intellectually and morally

correct for America. Well done Beverly.

(from an OpEd piece in the Union Democrat)

The Federal Government. Who needs it?

This question is the dominant theme in ongoing Congressional and Republican candidate debates. Today’s Republican Party represents a kaleidoscope of ideologies and agenda, with no central identity or purpose except one: Unseat President Obama.

Michelle Bachman and the tea party faction appear to be losing ground according to a study by Robert Putnam, Harvard professor of public policy, and David Campbell, Notre Dame political scientist. Their survey of 3,000 representative Americans showed tea partiers have a lower approval rating than Muslims and atheists, below 23 other entries including Democrats, Republicans and Sarah Palin.

While early tea party members were described as nonpartisan political neophytes, the study defines them as ”highly partisan Republicans, overwhelmingly white, with a low regard for immigrants and blacks.”

Though the tea-stained Republican Party claims fealty to the Constitution, their interpretations and loyalty are whatever they deem convenient. For Rick Perry, the Constitution forbids Social Security and mandates States Rights. To Ron Paul, it forbids a Federal Reserve and most other government entities. Some GOP members have even turned nihilist, toying with default on the nation’s debt. Whatever their target, this GOP faction is out to destroy government’s ability to govern.

This attack – not on policy differences but on government itself — is new and ominous. Its modern roots are as diverse as Ronald Reagan, the Dixiecrats and the Anti-New Dealers.

Republicans are well aware that not only is their party splintered, but declining demographically. The GOP does poorly among younger voters and ethnic minorities, who represent a rising share of the population.

The Constitutional amendment being pushed by Republicans would require a balanced budget every year, cap federal spending at 18 percent of gross national product, bar any increase in taxes without a supermajority of two-thirds of Congress or any increase in the national debt without a supermajority of three fifths. Like the filibuster, this would enable a mere one-third of either house of Congress to block an increase in taxes.

Such an amendment on spending could endanger the nation’s security, turn recessions into depressions, removing authority from elected branches altogether, leaving the Supreme Court to rule.

The Republicans are trying to establish the kind of arbitrary fiscal requirements the Founder rejected. The Founders did not believe they could anticipate all the demands the government might have to meet in centuries

to come. Today’s Republicans think they can make economic policy for all future generations.

Why does the GOP want to put government into a strait-jacket? Expecting their fortunes to decline, they want to entrench their views in constitutional mandates while they have the power to do so, achieving through a constitutional amendment what they could otherwise not politically sustain. Crafty, eh?

Current polls show a wide majority of both parties prefer tax increases on the wealthy over cutting Social Security and Medicare. This amendment would make any rollbacks of social protection virtually irreversible.

President Obama has tried hard to keep his promise of change, but with the steady stream of corporate lobby payoffs, the system is more gridlocked then ever. Corporate profits are soaring, yet corporations continue to cut wages and lay off workers and ship jobs overseas. If the private sector won’t spend the money to get the economy rolling, the public sector must spend more. Otherwise, the long-term deficit will only grow worse.

What is the matter with Democrats who criticize the President’s Jobs Act because it isn’t large enough? As they well know, the only reason it isn’t larger is because the only way to get it enacted is with Republican votes. The GOP is already fighting every aspect of the plan except for its concessions to business.

The left-wing Obama critics say he should bully-pulpit a bigger and bolder plan he knows won’t pass in order to campaign on the Republican rejection. Why doesn’t he? Perhaps the President believes even a little change for the better is worth his best efforts rather than keeping the status quo for another year. Maybe he has too much class and inherent honesty for such shenanigans. And maybe that’s just not his way of winning elections.

The Republicans are nonetheless calling the President’s Jobs Plan a Re-election Plan. While he is striving to accomplish the job he was elected to do despite all their obstacles, they don’t care if the economy is stagnant for another year or more, as long as he fails. Wake up, people. Know whos really got your back.

To quote the President: “Having Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs – a social net for people – is a vital role for our government It’s not enough to just leave that to local charities.” To quote Politico’s Roger Simon from his recent column in our Union Democrat: “Vote Republican and line up for private soup kitchens.”

The following is from an 1886 address by Mark Twain to the early union Knights of Labor

When all the bricklayers, and all the machinists, and all the miners, and blacksmiths, and printers, and hod-carriers, and stevedores, and house-painters, and brakemen, and engineers, and conductors, and factory hands, and horse-car drivers, and all the shop-girls, and all the sewing-women, and all the telegraph operators; in a word all the myriads of toilers in whom is slumbering the reality of that thing which you call Power ... when these rise, call the vast spectacle by any deluding name that will please your ear, but the fact remains a Nation has risen."

If big business is unwilling or unable to provide jobs for the American worker, then government has to do it.

Franklin Roosevelt, 1934

Tuolumne County Democratic Club : News

The Redistribution of Wealth Continues